You do realize, said Dr. Kurasawa peering over the rim of her glasses, that in order to restore your clan, you will need to form a lasting relationship with a member of the opposite sex. And so Sasuke's troubles begin. Second Chapter Added! Find out wh

(A/N) Hello!
Witch of Darkness here again in collaboration with Maru to Moro. We
have decided to continue the story of Mutsumi the summary for the
story that follows being thus: Mutsumi goes to a bar one night to
drown her sorrows after a series disastrous relationships and winds
up with some most…unusual company.

Disclaimer: I
don't own Naruto.

Mutsumi
gazed dismally down towards the bottom of her glass, her woefully
empty glass. "Bartender!" she hollered only slightly drunkenly,
"I need a refill on my Cosmopolitan."

The bartender sighed,
they got people like this in the bar all the time. The sad, lonely
types with nothing left for them but the resolute and steadfast
comfort of a bottle. Personally, he hoped it was the foreign,
expensive kind of bottle but hey, a bottle was a bottle, and after
three or four most people entered the "Happy" phase of drunk and
started tipping generously.

Meanwhile, Mutsumi,
who had gotten herself all tarted up and come down to a bar for
nothing, was entering a very different phase of drunk; thinking
morosely of her latest failures. Why? It just wasn't fair, she
was happy, and cheerful, ate her vegetables, cleaned her room and yet
life just wasn't living up to her expectations. It wasn't her
career she had a problem with, oh no, she was a fine, upstanding
ninja who was perfectly happy running messages and chaperoning
dignitaries around the fire country and the assorted allies thereof.
She wasn't phenomenal by any means but she'd pulled herself out
of a few scrapes most successfully and with dignity intact so on that
front things were just swell thank you very much.

It wasn't her
friends and family either, no, her parents were dead so no argument
from them on anything and she'd long ago dealt with the loss, such
being the life of a ninja. Her friends were a cheerful crowd,
primarily formed of her fellow chunins and a few others she'd
picked up here and there. They were supportive and lively and in
general perfectly agreeable people. Being ninjas there were a few
inconsistencies, Seiji still thought his pet frog was alive and even
took it on walks (it had been dead for about five years but no one
had the heart to tell him) but that was about it.

No, these were not the
areas which presented the problem at hand. You see, Mutsumi, like
most young women often entertained dreams of romance, of candle lit
suppers, and of long walks on the beach with a charming companion of
the opposite sex. It was from this wish that her troubles seemed to
have sprung. Mutsumi hiccupped slightly as the bartender refilled
her drink.

God,
she just could not seem to win. Sighing and leaning back slightly on
her barstool (which might have been a bad idea considering the effect
alcohol has on ones sense of balance) she surveyed the room. To her
left was a chain of the usual losers one finds in bars at varying
times of day, behind in the booths were groups of men and women
sometimes together sometimes not, all of whom seemed to be getting on
swimmingly (bastards) and to the right a mysterious, cloaked figure
who veritably oozed a sense of danger and the thinly veiled aura of
deadly resolve native only to the most highly trained of assassins.
It was an aura Mutsumi was strangely familiar with. Then again,
growing up in Konohagakure and imbibing a goodly number of alcoholic
beverages would familiarize and inure most people to such auras. In
her inebriated state, Mutsumi decided he was a soul in need of
company and who might present a sympathetic ear. (Not bad to look at
either, a little blurry, but not bad…he was vaguely familiar too.)

"You
alone too?" she addressed the stranger as she scooted over to sit
next to him, her black, leather miniskirt squeaking as it slid over
the red, pleather covering the bar stool.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Itachi was not
enjoying himself. He didn't usually go for such things as
"enjoying himself" but in this instance the lack of enjoyment was
particularly noted. This unhappy state of affairs was due in no
small part to his being in a bar. The Akatsuki did not work out of
bars, nor did they meet people in them. In fact, the Akatsuki in
most instances had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the
establishments. It just didn't work with the image they were
trying to create. The Akatsuki did not meet, nor were they met, they
simply appeared and disappeared without ever having registered in the
consciousness' of those with whom they interacted. Actually, after
a meeting with the Akatsuki very little registered in the
consciousness' of those with whom they interacted as in general,
they were no longer possessed of one. To top off Itachi's overall
un-enjoyment of the evening as he waited for his contact, some
prostitute seemed to be hitting on him.

Itachi glared at the
offending woman as she gazed blearily at him out of doe like brown
eyes. Or at least they would have been doe like but they were red
and blood shot either from some form of drug addiction, or too much
to drink. (It was possible she may have been weeping as women
sometimes did for no reason whatsoever but Itachi didn't think it
likely.) Regardless of her appearance, Itachi decided he ought to
get rid of her as her presence might interfere with his business but
then again miniskirt clad women might do something to improve his
image. (Kisame had recently been making a number of not so subtle
innuendos regarding his sexual orientation.) The choice was soon
taken out of his hands however.

As it happened, Itachi
had been drinking soda water (easier to detect poison) but before he
could answer the woman, (Itachi was beginning to think she wasn't a
hooker at this point as they didn't usually spend so much time on
formalities or money on drinks) had ordered him a glass of something
clear and strong smelling. Possibly rubbing alcohol. The woman had
ordered a glass of it for herself and was soon swigging away merrily.

She sighed and crossed
her legs, the miniskirt squeaking yet again, as she ran a hand
through her long, brown hair. "I wish I were otherwise engaged,
but I haven't been otherwise engaged for about a month. I don't
get it. I mean I'm sweet and funny and a C cup but ever since that
stupid Sasuke all the guys I've dated have been so weird."

At this point Itachi
had begun to notice certain peculiarities about her person. For
instance her fingers and palms were callused and her fingernails cut
practically short. She was amazingly agile for one who had drunk so
much and even in the dim light he could detect a faint tan line
running across her forehead of a most specific shape. There were
numerous other such peculiarities to be noted and it didn't take
long for an individual of Itachi's mental prowess to surmise that
she was a ninja. To be specific a chunin level ninja of the hidden
village of the leaf specializing in defensive nin-jutsu and
tai-jutsu. (Hey, you weren't a genius for nothing.) Itachi was
drawn from his momentary perusals of her person as she had continued
speaking.

"I mean I had really
thought that it would be fun. Because Sasuke was, well all the girls
wanted him and he was so handsome and talented and mysterious, but
then when we were actually talking all he does is obsess over this
revenge thing. It's pathetic. He has no life."

Itachi was deeply
gratified to hear it.

"And after that I
thought it would be okay and I'd just find someone normal if
slightly more interesting to go out with but I'd made friends with
this really nice girl named Sakura and she said that her ex-teacher
needed to go out with someone and I thought why not? I mean older
men are supposed to be interesting and mature right?" At this she
let out a long mirthless laugh. "I have never been so wrong."

She looked at Itachi
and he couldn't help but notice that she had the sort of haunted
look usually found in torture victims and people who spent a lot of
time around him.

She continued with her
story. "That bastard was THREE hours late. And do you know what
he did while I was there?" She didn't wait for a response. "He
read his dirty, echi, Icha Icha Paradise books that's what he did."
She fumed.

Itachi was slightly
stunned by the passion with which she spoke as well as the lethality
of a few of her gesticulations and had just begun formulating a plan
to wipe the smug looks off of Kisame's face, (girls on the rebound
were always easy) when she again gazed up tearfully from her drink
and opened her mouth. It seemed the saga of her woes wasn't
finished.

"After Kakashi I
swore off men for awhile," she began tremulously, "but then I met
this guy who was visiting from wind country, Gaara, a little bit
younger than me, but he was so sweet and vulnerable and…" she
sighed, "We dated for about two weeks and everything was really
nice. He said he didn't have a lot of experience with dating so I
chose most of the things we did and he was such a good listener most
of the time. He said he was trying to learn more about people and I
was so flattered that he was paying attention to me and not proposing
(Itachi wondered at this) that I didn't think there was anything
wrong with his being kind of quiet. At least he showed interest in
things unlike some other people I've mentioned, but then one day he
walked me home and I leaned in to give him a kiss and…well let's
just say I spent a week in the hospital with sand related injuries.
After that there was a wall between us. He said I'd startled him
and that he was really sorry, but it was like the trust was gone."

Itachi wondered at the
statistical probability of sequentially dating three of the most
psychologically disturbed individuals in the country. Now he was
quite disturbed in his own right, about that he had no illusion, but
Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi and Gaara? Combined they had enough
neurosis, pathologies and general abnormalities of thought to send
every therapist, psychiatrist, and neuropharmacologist running for
the hills. Still…, he glanced at Mutsumi, (as she had loudly
introduced herself to him upon having first appeared) she was
currently staring sorrowfully into space while leaning, arms folded,
slightly forward on the bar in front. The resulting effect being
that her ample bosom was placed most advantageously in a position of
greater prominence. She turned her head to look at him and Itachi
was struck by the fact that she was actually quite pretty. Her eyes
were large, and she had what was quite possibly the most perfectly
symmetrical nose Itachi had ever seen. Hmmm…the image of Kisame's
smirking face drifted through Itachi's mind, maybe she'd want to
make it an even four.

(A/N) Poor,
poor Mutsumi. She just can't catch a break can she?

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